Lift your Head

14 August 2016, Astro-Weather: The two inner planets lurk low in the western sky shortly after sunset this week. If you scan the horizon you should pick up Venus which shows up only because she shines so brightly. Mercury appears at nearly the same altitude but will be much harder to see because it glows more dimly. This morning, this innermost planet lies to the left of Venus & to Jupiter’s lower right.

Brilliant Jupiter remains a beacon in the western sky after sunset, but its days of prominence are numbered. It currently appears a half-hour after sunset & dips below the horizon during late twilight. The giant planet shines against the backdrop of western Virgo.

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917

600 BC – Birthday of Laozi, an ancient Chinese philosopher, writer – thought to be a contemporary of Confucius. The author of the Tao Te Ching & the founder of Taoism, also thought of as a deity in traditional Chinese religions.

1340 – Birthday of Meister Bertram of Minden, a German International Gothic painter primarily of religious art, 1st to paint the serpent as a temptress with a human head

1842 – American Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminole tribe forced from Florida to Oklahoma

1880 – Construction of Cologne Cathedral is completed

1888 – An audio recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord”, one of the first recordings of music ever made, is played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison’s phonograph in London, England

1912 – U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua

1914 – World War I: Start of the Battle of Lorraine

1916 – Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the Entente in World War I

1947 – Pakistan gains Independence from the British Empire & joins the Commonwealth of Nations

1956 – Deathday of Bertolt Brecht

2013 – Egypt declares a state of emergency as security forces kill hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi

2015 – The US Embassy in Havana, Cuba re-opens after 54 years

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Lift your head

& let the eye fix you

With Her wink,

A soul-spark to harken & inspire…

Look up & move forward

You are the eye reflecting

The fire of your own Becoming

There is light

See

Enough to lead you home

~hag

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This image was created by artist Imma von Eckardstein working from sketches given to her by Rudolf Steiner in the year 1912-13 for the new Calendar Of the Soul. The images are specifically related to an experience of the constellation in relation to the Sun in that constellation just prior to dawn in the northern hemisphere.

“…On August 10th, the Sun entered the astronomical constellation of Leo, the Lion. To more deeply understand the constellation of Leo one can turn to the deeds of Christ in relation to Leo. These deeds, according to Willi Sucher, stand as archetypes for humanity as a foundation for the new path of speaking to the stars. Below are two excerpts from Willi that point to a new understanding of Leo. “Leo is the archetype of all that which dwells within the “house” and from where the circulation radiates out into the totality of the body. So, what does it mean when Saturn is in that position? (Saturn carries the intentions or plan of the Father for world evolution) Saturn was, during most of the time of the Three Years, in Cancer. Christ dwelt in the “house,” the house of the originally divine human form, from which were imparted the new impulses of evolution to Earth existence. When Saturn enters Leo, (at the original Whitsun) we see something like a mighty communication of cosmic heart forces to the community of the first Christians. At the Whitsun Event they all experienced, as they were sitting there, something of the universality of the Christ impulse. They partook in it as a kind of cosmic communion. This was a tremendous, new manifestation of the meaning of Leo. The ancient symbol of Leo is the center point with the winding tail out to the periphery. You start out from the heart but then you move out to the periphery, for instance, to the periphery of the body, via the stream of the blood circulation. This happened, in a spiritual sense, to the entire community of first Christians who were present at the first Whitsun….at the time of Whitsun, Leo was given anew meaning. The original meaning was this: Once upon a time in the course of creation, the periphery was gathered together in order to build the human heart, for originally the archetypal functions of rhythm were right out in the periphery of the cosmos. These functions eventually became enclosed in the chest, the “house” of the human being. From the Christ events on, they can again expand toward the periphery. We can grow again toward the cosmos, but now in such a fashion that we maintain our integrity as a self. All this was spoken into the movement of Saturn during the Three Years by the deeds of Christ.” Willi Sucher, Cosmic Christianity, p 66/67

Another significant event associated with Leo at the time of Christ is in connection with a conjunction of Venus with the Sun. In its apparent loops around the Earth, Venus forms a great five pointed star or pentagram in the heavens, with the points being inferior and superior conjunctions. Part of the work of Willi Sucher was to connect these conjunctions with five events which signify a redemption of the old mysteries and the founding of the new Christian mysteries. One such point of this great new archetypal star of Venus occurred in Leo and is associated with the Beheading of John the Baptist by Herod through the efforts of his wife Herodias and her daughter Salome. We have in this event an image of the culmination of the old ego, the one in the center..the one “crying in the aloneness” sacrificed. “The ancient mysteries, which had run their course, were sacrificed in the head of John the Baptist. In Elijah, who was present in John, the ancient mysteries had reached their final culmination, the last eveningglow…This development culminated in the loop of Venus in Leo. The symbol that we use for Leo indicates a movement of involution from the periphery, which is then concentrated into what we see represented by the circle. Thus Leo leads us from the wide spaces of the universe down to the Earth and into ego-experience. At the time of Christ, the means of integrating the human being in the ancient mysteries of the cosmos had come to an end. The human being now had come to live in the ego.” Willi Sucher, Cosmic Christianity, p 87

Based on the research of Rudolf Steiner, we know that this sacrifice by John led to an expansion of his being to be of greater service to the Christ event. He worked from above, from the periphery, so to speak, as the guiding spirit of the Apostles as part of his greater mission contained in the mystery of John/ Lazarus. This is the other image of Leo as the movement through the center point, the eye of the needle, towards “not I but Christ in me”. With Jupiter in Leo until mid August and Venus and Mercury joining the Sun through Leo during August, it is a time for deeper understanding and feeling for the new Leo activity. What is the new spiritual communion of the human being with the world of humanity and with the world of spirit? What is this new rhythm of the heart, the self, in relation to these worlds? What does “Not I but Christ in me” truly mean? Perhaps an added insight can be gained from the fact that Rudolf Steiner was born with Saturn in Leo, suggesting his fundamental karmic task in service to humanity. Novalis was also born with Saturn in Leo (see Steiner on the relation of John to Novalis)”